Morality, politics, natonal interest, and vengeance together

A comment I made on Neo’s thread in response to someone saying something about war justification against Saddam.

Saddam only tried shooting down American pilots. The fact that only some Americans were tortured by Saddam’s thugs, probably means others are hoping to avoid big bad Saddam in 2003. Certainly Saddam had great big brass ones compared to the French or Germans. Although that didn’t help him much when his neck was stretched.

* From Marine Lt. Col. Clifford Acree, commander of VMO-2 squadron, and Chief Warrant Officer Guy Hunter, shot down over Kuwait in their OV-10A Bronco observation plane on January 18, 1991:

To make Acree’s steel handcuffs tighter, an Iraqi soldier stood on them, “forcing the metal claws into his wrist bone” and cutting off blood circulation. “His hands turned purple and swelled to three times their normal size.

“After being blindfolded, Acree and Hunter were driven in a large SUV for about eight to 10 hours to Baghdad.” Iraqi soldiers seated all around them beat the two Americans with rifle butts and blackjacks the whole way.

“The next three days in Baghdad were the most brutal for Acree.

Interrogations [in the Iraqi intelligence center that captives nicknamed ‘the Biltmore’] continued around the clock…. Acree’s neck, injured during ejection from his plane, was a particular focus of his captors, who attacked it repeatedly…. He remembers hearing a sound indicating something large was about to strike him. He envisioned a 4-by-4 post hitting the front and right side of his head. The blow lifted him up and out of his chair and onto the floor. Before he fell unconscious, he thought this blow had killed him….

“Acree was soon forced to endure a starvation diet of one bowl of broth per day, sometimes with a piece of small, thin bread. At times, he ate scabs off his body to reduce his intense hunger and stop his stomach from churning….

“During his last interrogation at the Biltmore, he was told that if he did not cooperate with them the next day they would use a new form of torture on him. Specifically, the guard said:

‘Tomorrow there will be 10 questions. If you have 10 good answers, you will have 10 fingers. And if there are 10 bad answers, you will have no fingers. And the torture will continue, and we will send your body home in pieces to your wife.

“Fortunately for Acree, that night allied forces-not knowing of the presence of the POWs in this lawful military target, dropped four 2,000 pound bombs on the Biltmore. The bombing reduced much of the Biltmore to rubble and the POWs were transferred, in the bus holding the screaming Iraqi, to ‘the Joliet,’ the POWs’ nickname for another prison in Baghdad.

“In addition to physical and psychological abuse, Hunter’s eyes became infected. He often had to pry his eyes open in the morning with his fingers because they had been sealed shut with pus from the infections. While in Iraq, he never received medical attention to correct these problems…. Upon his release, he was in a stupor for three years.”

* From Marine Capt. Craig Berryman, who was shot down in his AV-8B Harrier near Kuwait City on January 28, 1991:

“The interrogator pointed out to Berryman that his failure to make contact with any military personnel meant that he was presumed dead and that the Iraqis could therefore kill him with impunity. Berryman was extremely concerned that his family would have to go through life never knowing what happened to him. Indeed, Iraq never notified the Red Cross or any other organization of Berryman’s status as a POW.”

* From Marine Capt. Russell Sanborn, whose AV-8B was shot down over southern Kuwait on February 9, 1991:

“The guards also used a rubber hose to hit Sanborn’s legs and back…. They also smacked the sides of his head so hard they knocked him off his stool, loosened his teeth and broke his eardrums. After his eardrums had been ruptured, he could not hear or understand their questions. He was taken back to his cell.”

* From Air Force Col. Jeffrey Tice, whose F-16 fighter bomber was shot down over Baghdad on January 19, 1991:

“Tice’s captors beat him so hard they dislocated his jaw twice and burst his left eardrum. They hit him with rubber hoses and with clubs. They also tied a wire from one ear to another to something like a car battery and shocked him to the point that every muscle in his body contracted at once.” This forced Tice to clamp his jaws down so hard that he broke several of his teeth.

“Tice called this contraption ‘the Talkman.’ ”

Humbling indeed.

Has a single Iraqi ever attacked an American anywhere else in the world besides Iraq?

What matters to people and some Americans is whether Saddam did anything to harm them or theirs. Like Ayrab tribes, family is the only thing that matters, that and the religion of transnational progressivism.

All those other folks, Americans and Iraqis, that Saddam targeted? They don’t care. Hell, even if they did, they would never ask for vengeance because their souls are empty.

If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?-
William Shakespeare

Saddam’s dead, coincidentally. The thing is though, Bush is a compassionate conservative.

Similarly, Rumsfeld and the Afghan war commander, Army Gen. Tommy Franks, at a recent Pentagon briefing, tried to distance themselves from a videotape shot by a Predator drone showing a Navy SEAL being shot in the head by the Taliban. This distancing fit with the Bush administration’s attempt to look different from former President Clinton in the way it conducts military operations abroad. As administration officials commit America’s sons and daughters to the war on terrorism, they seem to be in constant fear of summoning up in the minds of the American public the old images of U.S. servicemen being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, Somalia.

What that means is that Bush had all the justificiation he could ever ask for to stoke American rage and anger at Iraq, but he never used it.

Ensuring that videos and films made from enemy atrocities are shown and remembered, are some of the best propaganda you can obtain to stoke up your side’s bloodlust. The Ayrabs use it to great effect against us, in fact.

Bush, contrary to reports of Hiterlism, is too civilized and sensitive for such. What differentiates him from folks on the Left, however, is that Bush’s weakness is caused by his love and desire not to inflict pain on American families. The Left’s desire for games is based upon the fact that they just don’t care, and if they did care, they wouldn’t care for Americans.

The American people deserves their revenge, since Americans take so little of it. They always side with magnanimity, which is great when your former enemies deserve it, but not so great when they don’t; when they use it to inflict more pain and sorrow upon us.

The transnational progressives like the ICC, Amnesty International, NewYorkTimes, and other such groups disagree. They say revenge is only a valid motive for people killing Americans and civilians.

Explore posts in the same categories: Arguments, Law